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Thursday, April 20, 2017

Hyundai to launch in India new Xcent today Thursday April 20,2017

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) is all set to launch a facelift of its compact sedan Xcent on Thursday April 20,2017

1) On the facade, the honeycomb mesh of the grille is replaced by single hexagonal grille with horizontal chrome slats. The grille’s got sharper corners and is chrome-lined.

The rear gets fluidic tail lamps, part of which is on the boot lid. the chrome slat connects the two tail lamps.

2) Under the bonnet, the petrol motor of Xcent will most likely remain the same – 1.2-litre generating 82PS @ 6000 rpm and 114 Nm torque @ 4000 rpm, when mated to either a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic gearbox.

However, Hyundai is expected to upgrade the diesel mill from the present 71PS, 1.1-litre engine to a bigger 1.2-litre one that churns out 76PS of power.

3) Details surfacing on Twitter also suggest the new Xcent will have a 7-inch audio-video and navigation console, shark-fin antenna, LED daytime-running-lamps at the fog lamp socket only in the top two trims-- SX and SX(O). A smartphone docking point, similar to what the Ford Figo Aspire Sports version received last week, is also expected to find a place on the dashboard.

4) Hyundai would be thinking twice before putting a price tag on this one, mainly for two reasons.

One: Hyundai has tried to be relatively premium brand as compared to Maruti Suzuki or Tata Motors, but the Xcent occupies a large share of the Ola, Uber and other commercial fleets across the country. Invariably with time, the brand perception associated with a product changes, as what happened to the Tata Indica and the Toyota Etios. So making the product premium yet affordable will be a double-edged sword.

Two: The recently launched Tata Tigor has created quite a flutter among buyers of the compact sedan segment, where the Xcent lies. There are also rumours of an updated Maruti Suzuki DZire coming later this year, which is the leader of the segment. Tata Tigor was smartly priced at Rs 4.7 lakh, while the segment average price is Rs 5.30 - 5.40 lakh. So the Xcent will have to be priced with a broader picture in view.

5) The base model price of the 2017 Grand i10 was lower than that of the outgoing model, but the new top-end variant became costlier than the older one. If Hyundai repeats it with the compact sedan, the 2017 Xcent may start at a price of around Rs 5.20 lakh instead of the existing Rs 5.40 lakh.